Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/318

310 "My master, shall we not sit awhile? The track here looks towards the plain. Sit, and through my eyes thou shalt see again distant Carmel and the fields between that used so to delight thee. Ah! not there!"

The old man had made as if to seat himself on one of the larger stones on the edge of the heap. But she prevented him quickly; was gone for a moment; and returned, rolling a moss-covered boulder to the right-hand of the path. The prophet sat himself down on this, and she on the ground at his feet.

"Just here, from my window below, I saw thee coming down the mountain with Gehazi, thy servant, on that day when it was promised to me that I should bear a son."

He nodded.

"For as often as we passed by," he said, "we found food and a little room prepared upon the wall. 'Thou hast been careful for us,' said I, 'with all this care. What is to be done for thee? Shall I speak to the King for thee, or to the captain of the host?' Thine answer was, 'I dwell in Shunem, among my own people.'"

"There is no greener spot in Israel."

"'But,' said my servant Gehazi, 'Every spot is greener where a child plays.' Therefore this child was promised thee."

She said, "But once a year the plain is yellow and not green; yellow away to the foot of